If you never do the work to find out what your true purpose is, you will optimize your life for the wrong thing.

This is known as sub-optimization.

Think about the touchless faucets at rest stops. The purpose of a faucet is to wash your hands, but these faucets aren’t really good at that.

You have to wave your hand underthe faucet for 2 minutes to get it to start. Maybe you have to scoot over to the next faucet because the sensor doesn’t register that you’re there.

Then, it squirts water for two seconds and your hands are still soapy. So, you wave again, and the cycle continues.

These faucets are great at *saving water,* but they are not great at the thing they should be great at: washing your hands.

That’s sub optimization at work.

Sometimes we say things like…

I want a 500lb Deadlift.

I want to make X dollars a year.

I want to lose 20lbs.

All those things are great, but if you have never done the work to understand WHY you want those things, you’re running the risk of suboptimizing your LIFE, and that would be a damn shame.

The person who wants that 500lb deadlift really just wants to feel strong and confident. They want to impress their partner and play with their children into their old age.

But, they never do the work to really dig deep and find their purpose — their true why. So, they go out and seek the 500lb deadlift.

On their journey to this arbitrary number, they hurt their back. They can’t play with their kids, and sex is limited to the supine position.

This person lost sight of the *true* goal, and as a result, their pursuit had the opposite effect of what they *really* wanted.

The person who wants more money really wants to be admired by their peers. They also want the financial freedom to be able to take vacations with their family. They want to have a positive impact on the world.

But, instead, they suboptimized for money. Now, they work 80 hours a week, never see their family, and are so stressed out that they can barely muster the energy to be a good person most of the time.

They’ve become so entrenched in their pursuit of a surface goal, that everything else — all of the important things — fall to the wayside.

The person who wants to lose 20lbs really just wants to feel sexy again.

What they don’t realize is that they can be sexy *without* losing weight. Losing weight is not the BIG GOAL — it’s just a small part of a much bigger picture. They can lose weight and be sexy, too, but that’s not what is keeping them from *feeling* sexy.

So, they lose the weight and never feel sexy, because they never worked on the things that were keeping them from that feeling in the first place. They never really got clear on their *why,* so they were never able to get what they really wanted.

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Knowing your “why,” is quickly becoming a cliché. Like most awesome things that get discovered, they get so played out and watered down, that these discoveries quickly lose their meaning.

Listen to your body…

It’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle...

Know your why…

Yeah, all of that is cool, but HOW?

There are a myriad of exercises one might do to get to core of why one really wants something. But for the sake of time, I’ll leave you with two simple questions:

What’s a surface goal you really want for yourself?

When you achieve that big goal, what’s the thing you would have that you didn’t have before?

Good luck, Pilgrim! May your journey be clear, and your steps sure :)